1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique of executing a computerized workflow.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, documents in companies, such as purchase orders for materials and approval documents, have been circulated as paper media among workers to put approval stamps thereon. A series of operations on such a document is generally called a workflow. Recently, transition from paper documents to electronic documents is in process. Therefore, computerized workflows have also been demanded.
Companies in general may have a document management system introduced thereto for managing objects such as electronic documents and image files. The document management system can be applied to a system provided for realizing computerized workflows.
When an electronic document is shared among a plurality of users, the electronic document may be assigned different access rights (e.g., execution rights for reference, edition, printing, etc.) for different users. When the electronic document is maintained in the document management system, the document management system can appropriately manage the access rights for the electronic document. However, once the electronic document is brought out of the document management system, the document management system can no longer control the access rights.
According to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-4549, a policy server that manages the access rights is introduced to manage the access rights for electronic documents brought out of the document management system.
Typically, the generator of an electronic document is granted all access rights including the rights to delete and edit. For example, a worker who generated a purchase order (the generator) can edit this electronic document even after the generator's boss performs approval processing for the electronic document. This would be a tampering with the electronic document and impair the validity of the approval stamp.
Accordingly, there is a need to appropriately modify the access rights for an electronic document according to a plurality of working statuses constituting a workflow.
An object of the present invention is to solve at least one of the above and other problems. The other problems will become apparent from the entirety of this specification.